Sanitation Worker Delivers Discarded Birthday Gift

Josh Kerns, a Medina sanitation worker, found a $50 bill in a birthday card while on a route in Medina, Ohio. He returned the card to the owner.

Loren Genson/Gazette

Call it your feel-good story of the day. A sanitation worker who discovered a birthday card in the trash went to the trouble to track down the recipient who threw it away without ever opening the card.

Josh Kerns, a sanitation worker in Medina County, Ohio, was assigned to a route that includes the home of Lucy Hamer. According to the Medina-Gazette, a local Ohio newspaper, Hamer threw away the card from her sister-in-law without ever seeing it.

Kerns noticed the card when he was emptying the trash and "thought it looked important," so he hung onto it instead of dumping it with the rest of the can's contents. After his route was complete, he opened it and discovered $50 inside.

"In this day and age, $50 is a lot of money," Kerns told the paper. "It's a tank of gas. We had to take it back to her."

So Kerns and his supervisor made the trek back to Hamer's house. Hamer got her $50, along with the card, which was from her sister-in-law. She didn't know about the card; it had been sent inside a box of presents for her son.

"She [her sister-in-law] would have been wondering why I didn't thank her for the card, and I might have been wondering why she didn't send one," Hamer said. "It could have been awkward."